March 4, 2011

Rare Birds

(If you've been following Arizona politics lately, you know people who make sense in this state are vanishingly rare birds.)

This person is named Susan Lanning, and I felt like cheering when I read her comments.

"The budget is coming up for a vote in Congress now, and the GOP is saying they want to save money so they don't burden our children and grandchildren with the national debt. They also say they refuse to raise taxes, even though we're paying the lowest taxes since Eisenhower.

Now, if people are really serious about not wanting to burden their offspring, then they would pay taxes through the nose to get rid of the debt. They would pay enough to have decent schools and health care for their kids. But they won't do this. Instead, they're willing to let education, healthcare and the modernization of our country crumble.

Seems to me they're talking out of both sides of their mouths. Tell me again how important the children are?"
Let's see, what can I add to this? Not much. Except maybe that if you care about your children, you sure as hell don't go around busting teachers' unions.

Also, if you claim to have been elected to create jobs, you don't propose a budget that will axe between 700 and 800,000 jobs, and then say "So be it."

It's an interesting point though, and one I haven't heard before--if you really care about the debt and the deficit, you should be wanting to pay more taxes, not less. If taxes were raised back to where they were in the 50's, both those suckers could be gone in one generation. Certainly the Republicans won't touch this idea with a ten-foot pole--and when it falls to billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to make this very basic point, you know the Republicans are empirically, provably wrong on this issue.

(Although I do wish Buffett, Gates and George Soros would spend some of their billions on one thing--buying Fox News and shutting that mofo down. I would end my self-imposed boycott of the Fake Noise channel for one night and gleefully watch Bill O'Reilly's, Sean Hannity's, and Glenn Beck's final hours. I might even shed some crocodile tears.)

As the title to Susan's letter said, "Legislators need to think of the future." Unfortunately, the Repooks are only thinking of the future of people like the Koch brothers, not us peons. As a reincarnated Marie Antoinette might say, "Let them eat austerity."